I got my MFA in film from the San Francisco art Institute and have shown at Jack Hanley and Anthony Meier Fine Arts and at The Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo etc. I’ve done illustrations for The New York Times, Ralph Lauren Polo, Mitsukoshi department stores, etc.

2. How did you get started as an illustrator?

I had a show in San Francisco and an older artist came and told me that I should be an illustrator. He gave me a list of names at magazines in New York and I took my portfolio to every one. It was actually a bunch of slides and not very well organized. New York Magazine gave me a job to illustrate five nightclubs and then I was working a lot after the pictures came out.

3. How did you find your style? Has it changed since you started?

I just stayed in my apartment and didn’t do anything but make these figurative pictures all day every day. I was trying to paint the figure in a graphic way and I outlined the people in pencil and then filled in the space with gouache and ink. I didn’t know what I was doing but somehow they all were similar. After awhile I had a bunch of work that was really consistent and held together — but it happened by chance. When I started to get a lot of work I was constantly rushing and doing every project that came my way and I think the stuff I was doing was not very good and I was always just trying to make money. After several years I started turning down work and then I pretty much stopped altogether. I was just drawing the people around me and stuff that I was thinking about and making paintings of dreams etc. and I didn’t like the old work anymore. So my work now is different.

4. Can you briefly explain your creative process, mediums, etc?

I mostly use gouache and ink and pencil but I also work in oil and acrylic and collage. I do a lot of different paintings at the same time and it’s always sort of evolving and changing. If I’m reading about something or want to remember something or if I get something in my head— I try to put it in my notebooks or sketchbooks—-somewhere so I don’t lose it. I keep trying to figure out where a picture is going and I don’t know how it will turn out. I go over different parts and then sometimes I try something out and it’s almost a surprise.

5. How do you come up with new ideas? Do you have a process?

I have a lot of ideas that I’m working on and many times when I do an illustration I like to work with those same ideas and sometimes it feels like it adds another dimension because of the old layers underneath. When I get a job I like to look through different paintings that I have piled everywhere and I try several different directions and then see what the art director might be interested in.

6. Do you ever have creative slumps? What do you do then?

I just keep drawing and working—–I mostly feel like it’s all an experiment and it’s not that I feel great about everything I’m doing—I just feel like it’s all a work in progress and unfinished and so I can keep changing and adding and erasing. When I go to my studio I just start looking at stuff or painting on something and then one thing leads to the next.

7. Best / most fun part of your job:

I’m really interested in it.

8. Worst / most difficult part of your job:

It’s difficult sometimes to come up with solutions on tight deadlines. Self promotion is challenging and awkward.

9. Do you have side projects you work on?

I’ve been working on an illustrated YA novel.

10. What’s on your horizon? Any current/future projects and plans/dreams you can share with us?

I recently illustrated a poetry collection for children and I’m working on a picture book for Scholastic. Also doing some paintings for a group show in the fall.

Thomas James is an Illustrator who has worked with The New York Times, WIRED, Pentagram, Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and many others. You can see his portfolio at thomasjamesillustration.com.